Love Shack Owner Sues Johns Creek

In yet the latest legal battle between the Love Shack and the City of Johns Creek, Mr. Cornetta is suing the city because they would not grant them a sign permit.  As expected, Mr. Cornetta is claiming loss of income due to the lack of a sign.  It will be interesting to see if Mr. Cornetta will open his books to reveal the sales and profit at his Johns Creek store.  Here is the AJC article:

The owner of an adult-themed retail chain is suing the city of Johns Creek – again – this time because the city has refused to allow him to erect a sign.

John Cornetta, owner of the Love Shack, filed suit in Fulton Superior Court on Nov. 15 saying city staff and the city Board of Zoning Appeals improperly denied him the right to put up a sign at his adult emporium in the heart of Johns Creek.

The suit says that Senior Planner Sam Bishop rejected Cornetta’s application for a sign because the Love Shack doesn’t have a business license. Cornetta’s suit said that’s not a good reason for denial because the city’s rules don’t tie sign permits to business licenses.

“They denied it because of who I am,” Cornetta said.

Cornetta appealed Bishop’s decision to the Zoning Board of Appeals and was shot down. Its members are named as defendants in the suit.

The city maintains that the Love Shack lacks the proper zoning for its location and is open illegally. The city claims that because the Love Shack is operating illegally, it can’t give the adult store a business license or a sign.

“It seems illogical to me that a business that’s not operating legally would have the right to advertise that illegal business with a sign,” Mayor Mike Bodker said.

Even though he remains open, Cornetta says he is entitled to a business license from the city. The city went to state court to force the Love Shack to close. The city hasn’t shut down the store because if Cornetta wins, he could sue Johns Creek for lost income.

Cornetta says the Love Shack legally opened under Fulton County regulations a year ago and the legal standing from the county carries over to the city. Fulton County says the Love Shack, in fact, didn’t conform to county rules and didn’t open legally. Cornetta and Fulton County are in court, too. The federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear the case Thursday.

“After Thursday, none of this is going to matter,” Cornetta said, predicting victory. “Everything will be moot.”

He vowed to come after the city for lost income because of the denial of a sign.

“It’ll be millions,” Cornetta said. “When I win this case, that store is going to be the No. 1 store in the country.”

 

Reader Comments on the Dangers of Alcohol – Part II

We have gotten more emails regarding the alcohol issues. The email is from a person seemed to agree with me:

Rather catty comment. I’d advise them to ask their community representative or church about helping to educate the community about alcohol. Think proactive not reactive.

The second email was from the original reader, who responded to my response:

Sorry. I misunderstood. I thought this was a site protesting an Adult Store, but this is a site protesting John Cornetta. What I should have said was: The amount of time spent worrying about this subject could be better spent helping those in real physical dangers.

Here is my response to them:

This website is about protesting an Adult Store that is located in a location that is not zoned for adult businesses.

You were the one to bring up the dangers of alcohol. If you have problem with the number of places you can get alcohol in Johns Creek than you can protest that.

We are free to pick which issues to be vocal on. I choose to be vocal against the Love Shack. This does not mean I think that alcohol is without its problems, but this is not an issue I choose to be vocal about at this time.

The fact is that you are making these claims about the dangers of alcohol to put down my protests of the Love Shack. My point is that the same person who owns the Love Shack also wants to sell alcohol, which you find very dangerous.

Another interesting thing is that Mr. Cornetta would not open his restaurant until he had his alcohol permit.

 

US Appeals Court Upholds Daytona Zoning and Public Nudity Ordinances

Our friends over at NoPornNorthamption.com has put together an excellent article documenting the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s recent Daytona Zoning decision. Please note that it is a long but worthy read. Several points to consider:

1. The Court upheld the City of Daytona’s use of secondary impacts as the basis for implementing zoning restrictions on adult businesses. This was done in spite of the fact that lawyers representing adult businesses argued that there has been no documented increase in crime around adult businesses according to the City’s own police records. The Court found that many of the type of crimes associated with adult businesses (public lewdness and prostitution) may not show up in police records.
2. The Court stated that there does not have to be any “available” sites for adult businesses as long as there are potential sites for adult businesses in a local jurisdiction. The Court was only concerned that zoning restrictions allowed adult businesses in a sufficient number of locations. The Court was not concerned if these sites were actually available to be occupied by an adult business. For example deed restrictions that prohibit adult businesses on a property that is zoned for adult businesses does not nullify the site from being considered as a potential site for First Amendment purposes. In addition all suitably zoned sites could be presently occupied and not available to buy or lease; again this fact does not does not nullify the site from being considered as a potential site for First Amendment purposes.

The second point is relevant to the Johns Creek Love Shack case. One of Mr. Cornetta’s arguments has been that there are no other ‘available” site for adult businesses in Johns Creek, even though adult businesses are allowed on industrially zoned land. This is because most (if not all) of the industrially zoned land in the City of Johns Creek is in the Johns Creek Tech Park. The Johns Creek Tech Park has restrictive deeds that prohibit adult uses. This fact makes it extremely difficult for an adult business to legitimately locate within the City of Johns Creek even if there are a sufficient number of sites zoned for adult businesses. Hence the battle over the current location (which is not zoned industrial).

The first point will become important if and when the City of Johns Creek zoning regulations related to adult businesses get challenged in court. Since the City of Johns Creek implemented time, place and manner restrictions on adult businesses based on data reasonably believed to be relevant to the City of Johns Creek, it will much harder for opposing lawyers to argue that the City of Johns Creeks restrictions are not based on solid evidence.

 

Up To Us To Send Sex Shops Packing

In a wonderful opinion piece in the AJC, Jim Osterman chimes in on the recent Love Shack ruling in Johns Creek.  Osterman is a resident of Sandy Springs and has this to say:

Last week our new-city neighbor to the north, Johns Creek, won a round in its ongoing battle to deny the Love Shack a business license. Down here we have our own versions of the Shack, and I know a lot of you wish they’d go away. Count me in.

Such places put nothing of worth into a community. They add nothing of substance to a community. Indeed, they erode community in the truest sense of the word.

 Jim Osterman hits the nail on the head.  He challenges us, the community at large to look past the government and at ourselves for the solution: 

Forget the mayor and city council. Forget some super-lawyer crafting a law that drops the hammer on the adult business. Are we capable of channeling our moral indignation into starving these places to death? Exercise some control and strive to improve our minds and spirits? Do the same for our children?

Do we, as a community, have that in us?

I have never heard of one single benefit to having such businesses in a community. Not one. What I usually hear is the “victimless crime” cliche, as though there can be a crime and not a victim.

The true solution to ridding any community of its porn palaces does not lie with elected officials. It’s not a government solution —- it’s a you-and-me solution.

Dry up the demand and the supply will starve. Government can’t legislate morality. That, kids, is an inside job. Do not ask anyone to do for you what you are not willing to do for yourself.

 

Porn Compared to Toxic Sludge

An article in the National Catholic Register takes aim at pornography and its impacts.  it asks the question that most people would rather not have to address:

When toxic sludge leeches into neighborhoods, we demand the polluter stop and clean up his mess. What about the sludge of pornography?

The article points out some of the impacts of pornography on our community:

 Pornography threatens marriage and the family by distorting the very meaning of sexuality. It threatens women by reducing them to objects of male pleasure, and blurring the lines between what is acceptable and what isn’t. It threatens young people by stoking appetites that are increasingly difficult to satisfy. It abuses freedom of speech, because this freedom that was meant to be at the service of public debate, is now being identified with unbridled obscenity.

And it leads to other crimes. In conjunction with Bishop Paul Loverde’s teaching efforts, the Alpha Omega Clinic in northern Virginia launched a website, Unity Restored, to help fight pornography in practical ways. The site points out the strong correlation between use of pornography and theft, violence and other anti-social behaviors because it encourages users in the habit of seeing other people as objects to be manipulated instead of persons to be loved.

The website further exposes the darkness of the pornography industry:

• A University of New Hampshire study released in February found that 2/3 of children exposed to pornography in the course of a year came across it accidentally during innocent Internet searches.

• “Stealth” pornography is particularly malicious because viewing graphic sexual imagery causes a biological and psychological response in viewers, whether or not they desire it — a response that makes resisting more difficult. Pornographers try to “hook” young people and other innocents to get new customers.

• Dr. C.J. Manning’s 2006 study on sexual compulsion showed that learning of a spouse’s porn use typically has the same impact on an innocent spouse as learning of an affair — and pornography is a significant factor leading to divorce.

• “Adult” images won’t enhance sexual intimacy (a common justification); research consistently shows that pornography use decreases the desire and ability to have relations with a partner.

America is a democracy. In the end, the fight against pornography will only be as strong as we are willing to make it. For information on fighting pornography and helping enforce America’s obscenity laws, see the website of Morality in Media (MoralityinMedia.org) 

 

5th Circuit Court of Appeals Ruling Part 2

The anti-porn site nopornnorthhampton.org provides a more detailed discussion of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recent decision on the secondary impacts of “off-site” consumption of pornography. The studies cited in this case provide the legal rational for regulating the secondary impacts of the “new-generation” of porn shops, who try to market themselves as “romance shops”.  The following quotes from their article provide a good summary:

Some porn merchants claim that adult bookstores (as opposed to adult theaters) only have off-site consumption of porn, that they generate no signficant secondary effects, and that they should be exempt from adult-use zoning. The US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals disagrees (PDF) just found that the City of Kennedale, TX has sufficiently demonstrated secondary effects for ‘off-premises’ porn shops.

We are pleased with the court’s decision. More generally, however, we are skeptical of the whole notion of ‘off-premises’ consumption. As anyone who has been in an adult bookstore knows, the shelves are lined floor to ceiling with movies and magazines with explicit covers. Unless you’re blindfolded, to select and buy anything is to consume porn.

 

Courts Say That “Off-Site” Adult Businesses Have Secondary Impacts

The following is taken from the website www.communitydefense.org. The gist of the post is that the 5th Court of Appeals has found that there are adequate studies that show that “off-site” (no adult material is consumed on-site) adult businesses have secondary impacts that can be regulated via time, place and manner restrictions:

In a dispute over the constitutionality of ordinances regulating sexually oriented businesses, a permanent injunction in favor of an off-site adult store is reversed and remanded for further proceedings where defendant-city produced evidence that it could have reasonably believed was relevant, and thus could have properly relied upon in tailoring the ordinances. Therefore, the ordinances are narrowly tailored to advance a substantial governmental interest, protecting against harmful secondary effects.

This is important because the pro porn advocates have claimed that “off-site” adult businesses do not have secondary impacts like traditional adult businesses. The 5th Circuit notes that there are at least two (2) separate studies that document the secondary impacts of “off-site” adult businesses. Since secondary impacts can be documented, government can regulate “off-site” adult businesses in a similar manner that they can regulate traditional adult businesses.

This could have a significant impact on the outcome of any lawsuit between the Love Shack and the Cityof Johns Creek since the Love Shack claims to be an “off-site” adult business that does not have secondary impacts and therefore should not be regulated like a traditional adult business.

 

List of Secondary Impacts of Sexually Oriented Businesses

Those who believe that pornography is harmless fun should explain the consistently negative impact that sexually-oriented businesses have on their surrounding neighborhoods:

Garden Grove, CA — 1981-1990 – On Garden Grove Blvd., seven adult businesses accounted for 36% of all crime in the area. In one case, a bar opened within 500 feet of an SOBs and serious crime within 1000 feet of that business rose 300% during the next year. 

Oklahoma City — 1986 – In closing 150 out of 163 adult sexually oriented businesses over a 5-year period, the rape rate declined 26.5% in Oklahoma City. During that period, the rape rate rose 20.5% in the rest of the state. Since November, 1992, eight Sobs have reopened in Oklahoma City, and the rape rate has started to climb. The District Attorney is reviewing his efforts to prosecute once again. 

Austin, TX — 1986 – in four study areas, sexually related crimes were between 177-482% higher than the city’s average. In tracing 81 license plates at Sobs, 44% were from outside Austin. (Adult businesses tend to attract outsiders; law enforcement in cities with Sobs are often burdened with enforcing laws on nonresidents, with the expense incurred by the city where the SOB is located.) 

Indianapolis, IN — 1984-1986 – Between 1978-1982, crime in study areas with Sobs were 46% higher than for the city as a whole. Sex related crimes were four times greater when Sobs were located near residential areas vs. commercial areas. The study concluded that: “Even a relatively passive use such as an adult book store [has] a serious negative effect on their immediate environs.” 

Phoenix, AZ — 1978 – Sex offenses, including indecent exposure, were 506% greater in neighborhoods with Sobs Even excluding indecent exposure, the sex offenses were still 132% greater in those neighborhoods. Property crimes were 43% higher and violent crimes were 4% higher. 

Whittier, CA — In comparison studies of two residential areas taken between 1970-1973 before Sobs, and 1974-1977 after Sobs, crimes increased 102% in the two study areas, compared to overall crime increase in the city of only 8.3% (In the two target areas: Malicious mischief increased 700%, assault increased 387%, prostitution increased 300%, and all theft increased 120%).